Memento Vivere
by pseudo-vulture
Summary: "One last chance, Anthony," Dominic says with a tilt of his head, although he's got to know Anthony's staying quiet by now. "What's the code?" ... A silhouette appears in the doorway and starts shooting before Dominic gets chance to aim. He only knows one guy with enough balls to try this kind of move. John. (Rated for violence and gratuitous use of latin)


Another fist crashes into Anthony's broken jaw. He coughs blood and feels the thick, sticky strands dripping from his lips to his chin. Sweat plasters his hair to his forehead. He closes his eyes for a long second, lets his head fall to his chest. He's breathing heavily, panting like a dog, and even that hurts now.

Elias is gone, safe, he isn't coming back now, if Riley knows what's good for him he won't let that happen. Anthony isn't so lucky. Doesn't look like anybody else cares enough to save him. He isn't getting out of here alive, he knew that from the first bullet in his shoulder. He knows the code to the safe but he sure as hell ain't sharing. As for the other code… Only Carl knows that. Maybe if Anthony knew he might've put himself out of his misery by now.

"One last chance, Anthony," Dominic says with a tilt of his head, although he's got to know Anthony's staying quiet by now. "What's the code?"

Anthony shakes his head. He wants to clench his teeth to brace himself for the next hit but his jaw won't comply.

He whimpers when Dominic's henchman draws back his fist, but Dominic shakes his head. The guy relaxes, shoulders back, arms crossed, same as Anthony when he receives that order to stand down. Dominic chambers a round and pulls back the safety on his gun.

Carl is safe and they don't have the code, he reminds himself. He did his job as well as he could.

A silhouette appears in the doorway and starts shooting before Dominic gets chance to aim. The guy stood closest to him, the only who broke his jaw, collapses, howling about his leg. He only knows one guy with enough balls to try this kind of move. John. Dominic runs to the back stairs, leaving his men to fight alone. Coward. John doesn't hang around either. He drags the whole chair back through the door until they're enough shelter to cut the zip ties.

Anthony rubs some life back into his aching wrists and stands up, trying not to sway too much or look as relieved as he feels. He swallows the blood in his mouth. "Took your time."

John rests a hand on his back, half to steady him, half to usher him towards the stairs while he uses his other hand to fire off a few more shots at Dominic's men.

"Had to talk Elias out of coming back in here himself."

Anthony's heart skips a beat. That coulda been messy. He nods, doesn't say 'thank you' out loud, but he can tell John gets the message.

He grunts in pain and grabs hold of the sleeve of John's jacket as they start down the stairs. In return, his arm snakes around Anthony's chest, definitely holding him up now, stopping him stumbling. Anthony doesn't argue, for once. He's proud (too proud, the Boss often tells him) but he isn't stupid; he'll take the help when he really needs it. They're still moving too slowly, but that's all on him, John isn't the one who can barely stay upright.

Neither of them speak again, he's too focused on putting one foot in front of the other, John is keeping an eye (and his gun) on the stairs behind them. Dominic's guys haven't worked up the guts to follow them yet, but sooner or later they would.

They get almost halfway down the building before the other group starts shooting from the landing below. Dominic is at the head of them; he wasn't fleeing earlier, just regrouping with the rest of his crew. Fuck.

John hauls him out of the stairwell by the back of his jacket before he can react, into the first room they come to as the clatter of footsteps gets closer. There's no door in the frame, it's leaning against the opposite wall, and just a couple of metal beds with thin, stained mattresses. Anthony clenches his fist involuntarily. It had to be here, this room he recognises instantly, the one he and Carl had shared all those years ago. Too many memories in this building, this room, and only a couple of them are good. The building has been empty for years, even if they only came into possession of it recently; the beds are probably the same ones. John drags one of them over to the door with a screech and flips it on its side, giving Dominic another obstacle before he can get to them.

Anthony leans against the wall next to it and allows himself to slide to the floor. John stands next to him, side on to the doorway. He fishes another magazine out of his pocket and drops the old one to the floor in front of Anthony.

"You got any more of those?"

The looks John gives him is enough of an answer.

"Didn't think any of us were gonna get out of here alive this time. Least Elias has."

Riley raises an eyebrow. "This isn't the first time I've got your Boss out of a situation like this."

And that's true, isn't it? The first time the building was bigger and the enemies were Russians but it was the same situation. Main difference is that last time Anthony wasn't around to help and this time he just failed. He closes his eyes.

"I'm gonna need you to stay awake for now, Anthony."

His head snaps up. "Good to know you finally learned my name, but you don't get to call me that."

"By your name?"

"We ain't on a first name basis, Riley," he says with a sneer. John hesitates and he rolls his eyes. "Didn't get a last name, huh? It's only been three years."

"Do you know mine?" John gives him slight smile.

"Does anyone?" Anthony shoots back. "It's Marconi to you. And before you start with the fucking pasta jokes, I'm not in the mood."

Riley snorts, but doesn't comment. His amusement quickly vanishes when a shot from one of Dominic's men hits the wall just above him, showering them both with plaster dust.

He narrows his eyes. "We need to get out of here. Can you call Elias for some backup?"

"I forgot the protect my phone when they got me. Musta been too busy protecting my kidneys. Dominic's got it now. Can't you call your friends?"

"They're busy."

"You're a detective. You got the whole NYPD at the end of a call."

"You're a wanted felon, Marconi. Didn't think you'd be so happy for me to call the cops in."

"Yeah, well, I like it better than dying. Especially here, like this, just us with nobody coming." Anthony lets his head fall back and stares at the damp-stained ceiling of the room he's hated since the first night he slept in it. God, he doesn't want to die here. Until now, it didn't look like he was going to have a choice, but his hands are free now and they're halfway down to the door. Just a little further.

"In the end we're all alone, and nobody's coming to save us," John says with a frown, tone like he's repeating a mantra.

Anthony grins, but it quickly turns into a grimace as he tries to sit up straighter. "That ain't right."

Riley raises an eyebrow.

"You came to save me."

Reese rolls his eyes and goes back to focussing on the corridor. He shoots again, and Anthony hears somebody further down the corridor curse. "You can thank your boss for that.

"If we both make it out of here, I will," he hesitates. "But if you didn't notice, I'm bleeding out over here."

"Didn't think you'd be scared of death, Marconi," John glances back at him.

"I'm not," he says, clutching at his injured shoulder with an already bloodied hand. "But you think I'm enjoying having a couple bullets in my chest?" he narrows his eyes when John doesn't answer, and goes silent for a long few seconds, just the sound of his heavy breathing and shouting outside the room from Dominic and his guys. "You really believe that? About dying alone?"

John nods, leaning out of the door and firing another shot from a clip that has to be almost empty by now.

He manages a bitter laugh that quickly turns into a damp cough. "Thought you were supposed to be the good guys round here."

"Maybe. Doesn't mean I've got to be unrealistic."

Anthony frowns. He barely remembers the last time he felt really, truly alone. Probably in this very room, he considers. Mostly, he remembers what happened just afterwards; Elias, back when he was just a skinny punk of a kid called Carl, giving him a hand up from the floor after he'd picked a fight with a kid about a foot taller than him, helping him clean up, the first person who'd cared enough to help him out, to see him as something more than worthless, beyond redemption.

Every time Anthony's gotten into situations where he isn't sure he's going to make it out since, he hasn't felt deserted by his family or his crew. He knew he'd be dying for something he believed in, if not the specific battle, certainly the man behind it all. He knows he'll be mourned, that he'll be avenged. The only time he's come close to being scared in the last few years was when when HR had him gunned down in broad daylight in the street, just because he knew they had to be planning to hurt the Boss too to pull off such a bold move, and he wouldn't be there to stop them.

He spits blood, hating that the taste stays in his mouth. "You ain't alone now."

"I'm not going to die now."

Anthony snorts. "Now who's being unrealistic? Like you said, nobody's coming to save us, and you gotta be running low on bullets by now."

He shrugs. He's more confident than Anthony is about their present situation, or maybe he's just better at bullshitting than Anthony gave him credit for.

Anthony dismisses it, pats the pockets of his jacket for his cigarettes, but the packet looks about as good as he feels, crushed by fists or boots against his ribs and stained with blood. All that's left of his lighter is sharp shards of purple plastic that leave his hands stinking of gas, and he wipes his hand on his jeans to try to get rid of it. He shakes the pack out onto the floor all the same, and while most of them are in about the same state as the packet, there's one that isn't snapped or too bloody to light. John throws him a lighter than Anthony guesses has probably only been used on the fuses of explosives up until now without being asked.

Anthony takes a long drag, then offers it to John. He shakes his head.

"I don't smoke."

"Probably better for both of us," he says, looking at the blood on the filter. He coughs wetly again. Not a good sign.

John's still looking at him, frozen as if he was about to say something else but stopped. "You weren't joking about bleeding out, huh?"

"Think I'd joke 'bout something like this? Getting shot's been the _best_ part of my day so far, Riley."

"Could've been gallows humour," John suggests, but the lightness has gone from his tone.

"Well, you got the gallows part right," he says with a pained smirk and another cough. He spits a mouthful of blood onto the floor. The cigarette hasn't done much to clear the taste from his mouth so far, but he's determined to enjoy what might be his final vice as he takes a last drag and flicks the butt through the door at Dominic's men. "Gimme your weapon."

"What?"

"I was never getting outta here. Don't mean you have to stay and die too," he says, reaching for John's gun. "You make a break for it. I'll cover you."

"Not gonna happen."

"Jesus, Riley, would you stop being a hero for once in your life?"

"If I leave you up here, Elias'll kill me himself. We've got this far."

"Is he safe?"

"Yes."

"Then it don't matter what happens to me."

John frowns. He's still for a second, watching Anthony carefully, then nods and crouches down in front of him. "Okay."

"You change your mind easy."

"You care about your boss," he says, almost carefully, and rests a hand on his good shoulder. "I missed that. Until today I thought you were just hired help, just sticking around for the paycheck, but it's more than that, isn't it?"

Anthony nods. No point hiding that, not now. "He's all I got. All that matters, anyway. You of all people have gotta understand that."

He doesn't answer, but he doesn't have to. Anthony can see he's right from the way his brows knit together. There are some people you can't afford to lose. He has just one person: Elias.

"You're sure about this?"

He swallows hard, nods. He doesn't want to die, but someone has to for the other to get out and he doesn't have the energy to get out of here now.

John gives him a hand up and helps him to lean against the door frame, one arm around his waist, carefully avoiding the bullet wound in his side, breath too close to Anthony's ear for comfort.

"You gonna give me the gun, then?"

"Something like that," John whispers, and a sharp weight slams against the base of Anthony's skull, sending sparks into his darkening vision. His last thought before it all fades to black is_ god, he can't believe he let himself get played by Captain fuckin' America..._

* * *

Gunfire. Anthony is dragged awake. It cuts off abruptly.

Footsteps on the wooden floor. A woman's heeled boots coming towards him. Paramedic's jacket, but those boots sure as hell ain't standard uniform.

John's voice but distant, like he's underwater: "You took your time."

"Relax, you're both still alive." The woman's voice. A sing-song kind of sarcasm. She's unfamiliar, but friendly with John. She hesitates, glances down at him. "Just."

"We need to get him out of here or we won't both be for much longer."

The woman shoots Anthony another sideways glance.

"He has time for us to get him out of here." She speaks with absolute conviction, like one glance can tell her that.

Hands slide beneath his armpits.

Pain sparks in his vision until he can't see any more, then it all gets too much again.

* * *

Shirt torn open, cold air on his chest and arms. Jacket's gone.

Sensation of movement. The sound of an engine, sirens close by. He's in an ambulance. No medical staff, just John.

Ambulance hits a pothole. Anthony tries to curse but only manages a whimper. John apologises, tells him they won't be driving much longer.

The same woman as before calls out: "Everyone still alive back there?"

Another pothole. A jolt worse than the first. Nausea. The fragments of his ribs grind like broken glass. He screws his eyes shut, tries to clench his teeth but it hurts. It only takes a second for him to pass out again.

* * *

Pressure on his rib cage, like somebody's stood on his chest. Every breath feels like choking. He reaches out for something, anything, and someone squeezes his hand.

"Shit, his lung's collapsed." Shaw. Urgent, but more annoyed than panicked. "Pass me that."

A brief moment where there's only more pressure on his chest.

"This is gonna hurt," she says, looking him in the eyes and Anthony thinks that it can't hurt more than it already does-

Until something stabs between his ribs. He can breathe again, but he can feel the needle moving as his chest rises and falls. He chokes out a curse. Someone squeezes his hand again, he sees it's John, still at his side, then there's another needle, this one in his arm. It takes a second, but numbness starts to spread through his body. He sighs with relief as he loses consciousness this time.

* * *

The next time Anthony wakes up is better. He's floating on strong painkillers, and there's a warm blanket covering most of his body.

He opens his eyes expecting to see a jail infirmary, to feel cuffs around his wrists, at least on his good arm, but no. His hands are free. His broken ribs are still throbbing, but the painkillers are keeping it limited to just a distant ache. The room is big, with tastefully eccentric decoration on the walls and matching furniture, not that different from their old place.

He's wearing sweats (his own, he realises) and nothing else, but as his eyes adjust, he sees that his leather jacket is on the back of one of the chairs, cleaned of the bloodstains. He owes whoever did that instead of just throwing it out, which he guesses was probably the only thing they could have done with the rest of his clothes. Between the tears and the bloodstains, he doesn't want his shirt or jeans back; it'll be easier just to get some new clothes, and he isn't sure he wants to be wearing anything he was almost tortured to death in, anyway.

Elias is sat in the other chair, a book in his hand that he's clearly not focussing that hard on, because he closes it the second Anthony turns his head. There are deep bags under his eyes, like he hasn't slept much for a while. He manages a reassuring smile through his obvious concern and exhaustion. Anthony can't respond in kind. It took most of his energy just to turn his head. He reaches out with his good hand and Carl clasps it between his. His hands are warm and more gentle than John's had been.

Nobody is here to see him in pain except Carl, who's seen it all before, there's nobody else to see him vulnerable, but he doesn't know how much this room is monitored. He doubts John and his friends would leave the two of them here completely alone in here after every time he's clashed with them over the last few years.

Despite that, he almost feels safe here, and god, if that isn't a rare feeling. It's probably okay for him to close his eyes and try and sleep a little while longer.

* * *

The room is dark when wakes again, and Carl is gone, but he can hear hushed voices outside now. He can't tell who, but they sound agitated. For now, at least, he tunes it out.

The painkillers are wearing off. Even if he's in pain, it means his head is clear enough to go through a mental checklist. Jaw has been re-positioned and wired shut, nose has been broken and reset (and not for the first time), rest of his face feels bruised as hell but he doesn't think there's anything worse. Breathing hurts, threatening to bring tears to Anthony's eyes. He remembers the needle in his chest; his lung had collapsed. Broken ribs, more than a few of them. If he had any plans that involved moving quickly any time in the next few weeks, he better forget them. The ache in his shoulder says muscle damage, nothing worse, and he hates that he's been hurt enough to know the difference.

He lets the voices back in. One of them is John, the other he doesn't recognise.

Anthony sits up, very slowly, one slight movement at a time, then lowers his legs to the floor. The wooden boards are cold beneath his feet. He takes a long, deep breath, then pushes himself off the bed to stand, albeit shakily, and supports himself with one arm against the wall as he limps to the door. As he gets closer, the voices get clearer, and he opens the door a crack to see what's going on.

"-but you shouldn't have brought Elias here." The guy is clearly John's boss, with the way he speaks to him. Harold. After four years he can finally put a face and a voice to a name. Anthony might never have seen him before, but he can tell he's ruffled.

"You heard what Shaw said, it's not safe to move him yet. What should we have done?"

"Not this! What happens the next time one of our numbers and Elias's business crosses paths? We don't have many safe places left, John."

"Should I have taken him to the subway instead?"

"You should've taken him to a hospital!"

"Root said that was a bad idea. Sooner or later, Samaritan is going to find out that we know them and it's going to use that. Better we have them on our side."

_Samaritan_. He has no idea who or what that is, but he's sure as hell going to let Elias know when he finds him.

The guy, Harold, deflates a little and John rests a hand on his upper arm.

"We're all worried about Shaw."

"I saw the footage from this morning. They were so close-" he stops mid sentence and glances pointedly at the door of Anthony's room. Anthony stands back, not wanting to close it and draw attention to himself.

The door opens and light pours in. Anthony staggers back a few more steps and raises his arm to cover his eyes.

John is stood in the doorway and immediately takes a step forward to help to steady him. God, he hates that. He was eavesdropping and the guy's instinct is still to help him. He lets John wrap a supportive arm around him and steer him back towards the bed, though. He doesn't really want to stay here, but, well, he's only walked as far as the door to the room and he already definitely needs the help offered to get him back to the bed.

"Did nobody ever tell you it's rude to spy on people, Anthony?"

He sits down and when he replies his voice is rough, hoarse. "Don't think you got a right to call me out on that."

John smirks. "Point taken."

He only takes his hand off Anthony's back when he's lying down again, and Anthony can't help but think he's got all too much 'help' off this guy recently. He raises his hand to the bruise on back of his head.

John smiles again. "I'd apologise, but you'd never have agreed to come with me otherwise."

"Think I was too unconscious to consent, Riley," he growls, but it's half-hearted. He's alive. Carl is fine, other than for worrying about him. John saved their asses again and, as much as Anthony hates it, he owes him for that.

"Where's the Boss? He was here earlier, and you and your friend were arguing about him."

John frowns at the mention of the disagreement. "Asleep in the other bedroom. Shaw finally forced him, he'd been in that chair the whole time since we brought him here."

"When was that?"

"About four days ago. I can wake him if you like?"

"Let him sleep. He'll need it," Anthony says quietly and lies back in bed. It's more comfortable than any hospital bed he's woken up in before, but he guesses these guys have got more money to spend. It's almost impossible for him to get comfortable with so many broken bones, either way.

"How long have you been together?" John asks finally. There's no judgement there, just earnest curiosity. Anthony isn't used to to just curiosity.

"Not as long as you'd think. About nine years." He's being too open, he knows, and he'll probably regret it later, but right now he's too tired to care. "Feelings were always there, he just didn't want somebody to hurt me to get to him."

"Like the other day?"

"Dominic woulda hurt me either way." He gives a one-shouldered shrug. "It's worth it if I get to be with him."

John reaches out to touch his arm, but then seems to think better of it. Anthony doesn't comment, just closes his eyes. Now he isn't looking, John reaches the rest of the way and rests a warm, calloused hand on Anthony's forearm. Anthony lets him without protest. John gives his arm a light squeeze, mindful of the bruises.

"What you said… 'You ain't alone now'," Anthony can hear the warmth in his voice, even if he is maybe mocking his accent a little. "You were right, and I needed to hear that."

Anthony stares into the darkness behind his eyelids for a while, then looks over at Riley again. "We all do. _Memento vivere, quia memento mori_."

Remember to live, remember you die.

He doubts Riley know what he just said, but he doesn't care; they're words that have been etched into his memory since he was a teenager, and words that Carl reminds him of every time he does something like this, gets hurt for his sake.

"Maybe I will next time I put myself in front of a bullet for someone who doesn't even like me," he says, raising an eyebrow. Maybe he's smarter than Anthony took him for.

"You saved my ass back there, not just the Boss's. I like you more than I did."

"Is that a thank you?"

"It's as close as you're gonna get."


End file.
